plenty of chances, but ricky can't seem to bury them. i say take out fernandes, play with elias as DM and bring in viola to play with rick as 2 strikers. even take out elias, put adrien back there and put Labyad at #10
Final 0-1. No flow and poor defending are just the more obvious faults , but the passing , the shooting , and off the ball placement and sense of the goal poaching is really almost 2nd division quality.
Maybe it's too soon to say this but I think that Sporting will going to have a hardest season than the past one. And I think that the main reason it's the midfield, since the departure of Matias we don't have a creative midfielder.
At beginning I thought that Andre Martins would be capable of replace Matias, but looks that I was wrong. He still is just a kid after all.
we are done, dropped points to two of the worst teams in the league already, will take a miracle for us to come in the top 3 this season, Braga, Benfica, Porto are all miles ahead of us by the looks of things.
Sa Pinto needs to do better to get these guys sharp. Insua, Elias, and Carillo (I like him better as a late game sub) need to see bench time. Cedric has been our best player the past 3 matches. Adrien has been decent at the 10 again, but Sa Pinto subbing him at the half again ain't gonna help him adjust to it properly. He could've just moved him back to 8 and brought on Labyad. Not sure what Martins is bringing that's so special right now. Sa Pinto likes the kid a lot, but he's no gamechanger off the bench. Adrien is a much better option at the 8 or 10. I don't think Labyad is a 10 either, he barely sees the ball when the other team is bunkering. Are Rinaudo and Pranjic injured? If not, get em in there. Rojo looks ok. At home we need to START the match with more ambition. 2 DMs is overkill. With all the cross and corners, we could use Gooch's aerial threat. 3 matches, same lineup essentially, poor results. What do you all think is our best lineup right now? Not based on potential or unrealistic lineups, but based on what we've seen how can we best utlize our talent?
I don't know what Sa pinto sees in certain players, but i would love to see the following lineup very soon. Not a fan of gelson, and would rather see rinaudo. sub carrilo for labyad/viola. sub schaar for elias if needed. --------------patricio----------- cedric---xandao----Rojo--pranjic -----------Rinaudo------------ ------schaars---adrien-------- Carrilo-----Ricky------Capel----
with the Emergence of SC Braga, CS Maritimo, and Beira Mar I can't see how Sporting can keep pace with Benfica, Braga, and Porto and in terms of money coming in for Sporting I dont see it either insetead of loaning Salamao you should of kept him honestly not trying to get under peoples skin but I can see Sporting finishing 6th or 7th in the Liga Sagres if they dont improve. P.S. That Rio Ave squad is really good theyu have great players and I expect them to make a push for the Europa League. Gone are the days of the BIG 3. Portuguese Bola is getting bigger and as the League rises in UEFA coeffencients so do the teams in the Liga only shit teams in the Liga are Morierense to be honest.
No they can't. Our teams outside of the Big 4 consistently get beaten in EL by teams or higher and lower ranked positions. Our league is still the Big 3. Braga has come on strong as of late but this won't go one forever as the big 3 reap all the rewards. Our UEFA ranking is where it is at because of the big 3 and Braga. Our other teams just bring it down. Now with 6 teams, we will see France easily overtake us. Maybe Russia might take us too. We are lucky that the turks and dutch are having a hard time in UEFA competitions too.
i can't see 6th or 7th happening. worst case 4th place like last year. there's other teams that are crap this year. Guimares will struggle to not get relegated. estroil isn't nothing great either. Sporting needs to put a few balls in the net and they'll be fine. especially ricky.
i agree. with the big 3 and braga's results in europe in last 3 years, has brought us up in rankings. With braga potentially not playing in CL this year, could hurt us big time. lets hope benfica and porto do well.
Boavista did well about 10 years ago then disappeared. Maritimo and Nacional have won some games but never make it to the round of 32/16 etc... The issue is that the teams that don't constantly make it to the UEFA competitions and when they do, they are not seeded which means there are more likely to face a much better and experienced team. If the big 3 have have one bad season, we will drop a few spots because the other can't possibly pick up the slack.
If Braga don't make it to the CL, it might actually help Portugal in the long run assuming Braga make it far in the EL but we will miss out on those CL bonus points.
Yeah, but Martins said one time that he is a number 10 player, or at least it's what he thinks. Maybe he just need get more practice.
I gotta disagree on a couple of things. I think people tend to overrate other leagues, u really don't see many french or russian clubs going to deep in tournaments, not even europa league. In fact we will more than likely extend our coefficients points from France and Russia, because in the next 2 years we will be losing our 2 worst european seasons in the last 5 years while Russia and especially France will be losing their best. As for the 6 teams thing, we've had 6 teams in europe for several seasons now (sometimes 7 because of the intertoto cup), so that's not a problem at all. We can easily finish fourth this season ahead of Italy, and if not. we will start ahead of Italy next season.